6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A spider escapes from an isolated desert laboratory experimenting in giantism and grows to tremendous size as it wreaks havoc on the local inhabitants.
Starring: John Agar, Mara Corday, Leo G. Carroll, Nestor Paiva, Ross ElliottHorror | 100% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
1583 kbps
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Hollywood cinema in the 1950s churned out a panoply of radioactive monster movies that tapped into Americans' anxieties over the Red Scare and fear of the hydrogen and A-bomb. It was commonplace for theaters to show killer bug and insect films such as Highly Dangerous (1950), Them! (1954), The Black Scorpion (1957), The Deadly Mantis (1957), The Fly (1958), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), and The Wasp Woman (1959). Sandwiched in between these is Universal-International's production of Tarantula (1955), which was written by Robert M. Fresco (The Monolith Monsters) and Martin Berkeley (Revenge of the Creature), with genre stalwart Jack Arnold (Monster on the Campus) handling the direction.
Tarantula begins eerily in a blustery Arizona desert where a drifter—dressed in pajamas and sporting a Wolfman-like face—collapses, rises, and falls to the ground again. The local sheriff's office calls Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar), a country doctor, to inspect the deceased and disfigured man. At the autopsy Hastings meets Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), who claims he knew the man for several years and worked in the same lab together with him. Deemer has been working on a potent nutrient drug that can transform animals 2-3 times their normal size and also causes unknown physical effects on humans. The professor/scientist has been testing his serum on a guinea pig, mouse, and tarantula, with burgeoning results in size on each. One day Deemer is attacked by a perpetrator similar in appearance to the man in the desert, who breaks the tarantula out of his glass cage. The arachnid grows exponentially and the Yuma Desert has one big problem. Deemer survives the attack in his lab but is never the same. Fresco and Berkeley add both a lab assistant for Deemer and a love interest for Hastings with Stephanie Clayton (Mara Corday), a curvaceous brunette beauty. The filmmakers really begin to ratchet up the thrills when the giant tarantula attacks a farmer's livestock and cattle.
Don't let it out!
Tarantula makes its North American debut on Blu-ray with this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-25 courtesy of Shout! Factory. This is the film's second release on HD worldwide, which comes five years after German-based Koch Media presented the film with two different aspect ratios: the broadcast version of 1.33:1 and the 16x9 friendly 1.77:1. Shout! presents Tarantula in its original exhibited ratio of 1.85:1. The archival print has received a new 2K scan using the original film elements and looks quite good on Blu-ray. The grain structure is very pleasing to my eyes. Greyscale and contrast are both solid. The one drawback is that more age-related artifacts crop up as the film moves along. There seems to have been a stock shot of a rabbit running (Screenshot #19) where you can spot a lot of print damage. Same goes for the tramlines in #20. Shout! has encoded the main feature at an average video bitrate of 35000 kbps.
The 81-minute feature is broken up into twelve scene selections.
Shout! supplies the original monaural as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono (1583 kbps, 24-bit). The master is in outstanding condition and exhibits few if any traces of pops, crackles, or audible hiss. Dialogue is communicated clearly and cogently on this lossless presentation. One review from 1955 described the tarantula as emitting a "strange whirring sound" and this is in full force here.
According to movie music expert David Schecter on the commentary track, the "score" for Tarantula had ninety music cues: fifty-two by Herman Stein (23.5 minutes of new music) and thirty-eight by Henry Mancini (but who only contributed about 38 seconds of new music). So a great majority of music was recycled from Universal's library by primarily these two composers. Older material was derived from twenty different Universal pictures. New music was added later to spice up the action.
Because Tarantula is in black and white, Shout! has designed the optional English SDH in yellow.
Tarantula is a very good entry in the killer bug and insect film subgenre of the 1950s. Though not on the same level as Them!, it finds director Jack Arnold near the top of his game. Bud Westmore's makeup effects remain superb and Wah Chang's tarantula puppet continues to impress after sixty-four years. Shout! Factory has given the film a respectable restoration but I think more work could have been done to remove the remaining damage marks. The uncompressed monaural track sounds clear. Tom Weaver helms another largely informative compilation commentary track. Shout! has done a great archival service by retrieving many rare photographs and memorabilia, which look marvelous in the two still galleries. A SOLID RECOMMENDATION.
Universal Essentials Collection
1953
1957
1954
2K Restoration
1958
Collector's Edition
1988
1957
Warner Archive Collection
1958
The Giant Leeches
1959
2011
1956
1990
1989
1972
1959
It Lives by Night
1974
1957
1957
Warner Archive Collection
1951
1957
1955